FIRE CHIEF FEARS FALLING WALLS MAY CRUSH BUILDING ON OPPOSITE SIDE OF NARROW STREET

Firemen, Forced to Retreat, Leave Hose Nozzles Lashed to Balcony and Trained on Smoking Ruins—Seek Body of Fire Hero—Small Chance of Early Success,

Weakened, ice-laden walls of the burned out shell of what was the Equitable Life Building this afternoon showed such dangerous signs of collapsing that Deputy Fire Chief Langford ordered all tenants out of the American Exchange National Bank Building, located at the northeast corner of Broadway and Cedar street.

Chief Langford made his orders peremptory and Inspector Cahalane sent policemen through the bank building, driving out those in it. The firemen who had been playing two streams from a balcony on the Cedar street side of the American Exchange National Bank Building were ordered to lash the nozzles so that they were aimed at the still smoking ruins of the Equitable and to abandon their perilous posts.

The American Exchange National Bank Building is a sixteen story structure. Across narrow Cedar street the five story shell of wall was seen to be greatly weakened and weighted with ice, which had formed from the streams played on the building for the past two days.

Firemen and men from the Bureau of Buildings were searching through the ruins for the body of Battalion Chief William J. Walsh, who was caught under wreckage yesterday morning.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIRMS ROUTED

When the employes of the one hundred and fifty firms of the bank building had been driven out this afternoon, the police prevented all from going near the danger zone. The tenants routed out were bankers, brokers and lawyers.

Chief Langford took the precaution before any sudden crumbling could precipitate tons of granite into Cedar street, or before a wall could crash across the narrow side thoroughfare against the bank building. There was always fear that the falling walls might crash through the roof of the subway and the street surface of Broadway.

Workmen with picks and shovels reached the vaults of the Mercantile Trust Company and fifty clerks, guarded by detectives, carried $50,000,000 worth of bonds to the temporary quarters at No. 7 Wall street.

With twenty firemen from truck companies Nos. 8 and 20, Chief Binns carefully picked his way into the ruins from the Cedar street side and over

Ice-Covered, Firemen Are Still Playing Many Streams on the Remains of the Equitable Building--Hope to Get Out Dead by Night.

shaky floors bending beneath the weight of hundreds of tons of icy debris. He Bought the spot near the stairway shaft between the third and fourth floors, where Chief Walsh was last seen alive and where his comrades expect to find his body.

They found the Nassau and Cedar street sections not so badly burned as other parts of the building, but about the stairway there was a great mass of tangled masonry, plaster and twisted iron, all hidden by a coating of ice many feet deep, forming a fantastic tomb for the body of the fire fighter. To attack this at present seemed a hopeless task, and the prospect of the immediate recovery of Chief Walsh's body seemed slight.

LITTLE HOPE OF FINDING BODY TO-DAY.

"I have no idea that we will find the body to-day," said Chief Binns, "but of course there is always a chance. It is possible that we may have to wait for days, and may be a week, until the weather conditions change and melt the ice. Another difficulty is that we do not know exactly where he lies."

Fifty men, with picks and axes, to-day attacked the mountain of ice which barred the entrance to the wrecked offices of the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company in the hope of reaching the body of William Campion..the day captain of the vault of that company, which lies buried there under an icy winding sheet and crushed by the falling masonry, which held him a prisoner as he reached through the barred doors that held him captive.

Wreckers from the Canavan Wrecking Company were summoned by the Fire Department to aid in removing the ice and recovering the bodies, but there was little hope of success until the cold wave abates and loosens the grip of the ice upon the ruins.

CEDAR STREET WALLS THREATEN TO FALL.

The difficulty, and danger under which the firemen and wreckers still work became more apparent this afternoon when Fire Chief Kenlon declared that the walls along the Cedar street side and at the corner of that street and Broadway were in danger of being pulled down by the tons of ice upon them. The Chief gave orders that they be shored up until such time as the wreckers decided to pull them down.

In the Arctic blasts that swept through the ruins to-day firemen still suffered severely. One of the sufferers was Joseph Rowland, of Long Island City, who was taken from the fire lines, half frozen, and sent to the offices of the Manhattan Trust Company, in the United States Realty Building, across Broadway, where he was thawed out by a big drink of hot coffee and was put to sleep on top of the big desk of the vice president of the company, Mr. Duane.

ICE-COATED FIREMEN REPLACE FINANCIERS.

Throughout the vicinity of the fire similar odd scenes were. enacted. Firemen in ice sheathed coats and helmets now occupied the offices where financiers usually conducted their business over polished mahogany, and hose nozzles were poked from office windows overlooking the ruins.

In the offices of great financial Institutions near the Equitable Building business was almost suspended, owing to the difficulty of access. Their luxuriously furnished offices became headquarters where suffering firemen came for coffee and sandwiches when they could no longer face the wintry blasts.

With $1,000,000,000 worth of cash and securities tied up in the vaults; and their condition a matter of some speculation, business in the financial district was seriously hampered again to-day. Members of the New York Stock Exchange were unable to make deliveries of stock they sold, as required by the rules of the Exchange, and the Governing Committee of that institution was again compelled to suspend the rule.

TEMPORARY OFFICES ARE BESIEGED.

The Equitable Trust Company's temporary offices at No. 115 Broadway were besieged by hundreds of interested persons, many of them carrying big packages or boxes of papers and other documents of a valuable nature.

"All our work is intact," said Oliver W. Krech, "and the fire will have no deterrent effect on our business. All our mall has been recovered, thanks to an efficient system, and there will be no loss, except of time, and that can be made up."

Besides the large body of uniformed men keeping the police lines, detectives have been sent to the Equitable Building to guard the contents of the huge vaults.

LAST MINUTE NEWS.

EQUITABLE FIRE BURNED SIXTEEN MINUTES BEFORE ANY ALARM WAS TURNED IN

- That the Equitable Building fire had been burning at least sixteen minutes before the first alarm was sent in was told this afternoon at the inquiry conducted by Acting Fire Marshal Prial. Three policemen and nine Cafe Savarin employes testified to the discovery of the fire, and the automatically stopped clocks in the fire engine houses showed the length of time before the box was pulled. Philip O'Brien, timekeeper of the Savarin, insisted he lighted the gas in his room at the foot of the elevator shaft and threw the match on the stone floor outside. After leaving the room a short time he was called by another employe and found his wastebasket and chair blazing. The report of the Board of Underwriters late this afternoon gives the opinion that considerable time was wasted before an alarm was turned in.

Chief Kenlon this afternoon gave out the estimated cost of fighting the Equitable fire, the total cost to the city being $92,109. He estimates that 15,000.000 gallons of water were thrown into the building.